Petes boat can travel 48 miles upstream in 4 hours. the return trip takes 3 hours. find the speed of the boat in still water and the speed of the current.

So... hmm bear in mind, when the boat goes upstream, it goes against the stream, so, if the boat has speed rate of say "b", and the stream has a rate of "r", then the speed going up is b - r, the boat's rate minus the streams, because the stream is subtracting speed as it goes up

going downstream is a bit different, the stream speed is "added" to boat's
so the boat is really going faster, is going b + r

notice, the distance is the same, upstream as well as downstream
thus   

solve for "r", to see what the stream's rate is

what about the boat's? well, just plug the value for "r" on either equation and solve for "b"

, and

for

step-by-step explanation:

we can analyze the pattern at which the terms increase. let us denote , , , so that we can call

1 the 1st term, 3 the 2nd term, 6 the 3rd term,etc.

note the following:

from the 1st term (1) to the 2nd term (3), we go up by 2,from the 2nd term (3) to the 3rd term (6), we go up by 3from the 3rd term (6) to the 4th term (10), we go up by 4, andfrom the 4th term (10) to the 5th term (15), we go up by 5.

the pattern: to get the next term value, we just add the next term number (e.g. 1st, 2nd, to the previous term value (term values are the given numbers in the question, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15,

from , to get to , we add

from , to get to , we add

etc.

we need to form a recursive formula, a formula that has the next term as a function of the previous term. so a possible recursive formula can be

, and for